


Carnation

by charcolor



Category: Original Work
Genre: Abuse, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 03:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13180971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charcolor/pseuds/charcolor
Summary: Flowers will always wilt, no matter how hard we try. If only I could protect myself from the inevitable.





	Carnation

**Author's Note:**

> i actually wrote this last year for a short story contest. i didn't win gold, but i think the story is pretty good anyway, so i thought i'd post it here and see how other people like it.

The first flower I met was an orchid. Her pale skin had dark veins and lines running through to her rounded fingertips. Her soft face was roughened by a flurry of freckles. She was my mother, who bathed me in luxury and nurture and gave me the strength and vitality to bloom. The orchid wilted until the skin was thin and pale and everything sagged in sadness, and the veins that were so bold and prominent became weak wrinkles.

The second flower I met was a lilac. She was small and bright and she thought the world of me. Her freckles were tiny specks of happiness sprinkled across her body. Her hands were a little too small and her feet were a little too big, but the freckles, like a rainfall of pistils, made these oddities unnoticeable. She was my sister, and encouraged me with her overwhelming admiration to keep blooming so I could be such a tall flower that I can reach my dreams and aspiration. When the lilac wilted, she lost her color and her shape until she was barely recognizable, and the pistils had fallen from her flower.

The third flower I met was a tulip. Her legs were thicker than my stem ever was, and her torso was fat and soft. She said the beauty of my petals gave her hope, and that hope became forgiveness for all the sins that ran through my body. She enchanted me with her simple beauty. Her eyes were a light amber color almost like the yellow petals always covering her pale, clear body. The tulip wilted so slowly that I never noticed her hopeful sunniness becoming heavy sadness, and when I saw she’d lost her color and beauty it was far too late.

The fourth flower I met was a daffodil. She had a dark body with bright, colorful petals. Her sun spots and speckles created a beautiful constellation out of her. She was my first friend, and just by looking at her I was filled with such a calming easiness that it rained on my worries until they washed away. But the daffodil grew twisted and ugly and was almost like a weed, and I was so scared to cut her stem, as her roots had intertwined with mine at this point.

Then, I met a weed. How strange for a flower to fall in love with a weed, but weeds don’t wilt, and I was scared of meeting any more flowers. When I saw her little charming face among the field of wilting flowers, I should have known not to be so desperate.

“You are a beautiful daisy,” she told me, her voice soft like dandelion puffs.

“I don’t want to be a daisy.” My voice was quiet and breathy like a fading spring breeze. “Flowers wilt too fast. I don’t want to become twisted and ugly like a dead flower. I want to be more like you. You’re indestructible, and in the midst of all the wilted flowers you were the only survivor.”

“I know the secret.” A smile danced on the corners of her lips, and her stormy gray eyes twinkled with eagerness.

“The secret?”

“I can make your flower last a long, long time.”

I believed her. I was so foolish, so desperate. When I saw those wilted flowers surrounding this little dandelion in the chilling rainstorm in the field, I was convinced that flowers were no good, as they would wilt all too quickly. Now I realize it was a warning of how much devastation a weed could do, and I was too stupid to listen.

“If I intertwine my roots with yours, we can have a strong enough bond to last forever,” she whispered sweetly.

I had the detached roots of an orchid, a lilac, a tulip and a daffodil tangled into my own. It was such a heavy snarl that it twisted around my heart until it was too tight to know anything but death. I knew that a weed could cut through those roots and loosen my heart, but what I didn’t realize was how decayed and destroyed my own roots would become.

First, I was forcefully tied to her by her roots. Her warnings of danger in the outside world were really nothing new, but somehow the voice of a soft dandelion injected so much more horror into those words. “You cannot leave my side. You are a beautiful daisy. If you leave, you’ll wilt. If you become close with other flowers, they will wilt too. I’m the only one that can stop that, so you have to stay by my side.”

Now I could no longer even look at flowers. I was so frightened that once our eyes locked, my roots would shoot towards theirs and we would be attached even after their inevitable demise. I could not go outside for this reason. The dandelion was confused. “Why won’t you come outside with me?” Her question was stained with some kind of threat.

“I can’t go outside. I’m scared. There are too many flowers.”

“If you stay by my side, you won’t need to be scared. If anyone gets too close, I’ll kill their roots so that they never see you again.”

I thought this was a reassurance. I thought I was safe after she told me that she would kill any flower that my roots touched. What I didn’t know was that this would last for my whole life if I didn’t stay away from weeds. I slowly learned that weeds were just flowers that never stopped wilting.

My roots dried up. My fear of the outdoors and necessities starved and weakened me so that I could not say no to anything as long as I believed it was to help me. Her laugh became harsher and more derisive. Her roots trapped my heart in darkness and squeezed it so hard it bled with love for my horrible, horrible weed.

“I’m only making you stronger.” Her voice felt distant and muffled and I could not even recognize any emotion. “I’ve been tied to you long enough for you to know. You would have wilted and dissipated by now if you had fallen in love with a regular flower. If you can survive the way I survive, without rain or light or a strong ground, you will be indestructible just like me.”

As much as I wanted to believe her, my tightened, bleeding heart was crying for me to stop, to realize that I was making so many mistakes, that a flower cannot survive as attached to a weed as I was. But even if the cry reached me, it did not reach my weed.

“You are a pathetic daisy. You’re weak, your petals and your roots are all dried up. You were never strong enough to love me. Just like the gerberas and roses and every other flower I’ve ever met.”

All I could manage to whisper was, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t even try to beg for forgiveness. I won’t fall for that again. I can’t love something so weak and fragile. My love is too strong for you to handle.”

“I’m sorry.”

The weed finally left, and I knew I should have felt relieved, but now there was a hole in my heart. My dried-up roots were knotted into her ugly influence. For days, for weeks, I longed for her return, for her to forgive me and make me stronger like she’d promised. And if not that, I wished with all of my suffocating heart for the weed’s roots to go away, to free me from these emotions that trapped me in a cage of despair and hopelessness.

I cried, hoping after I was done I’d have spilled so many tears that it would revive my roots and I would continue to bloom. My mother had told me that sometimes, crying was the best way to cope. “Flowers need both rain and sunshine to grow,” the orchid said to me every night when I was just a sapling. “But one day, the desolation will pass. It needs to. Too much water will make a flower too heavy to even want to grow.”

I remembered the words and spirits of the flowers I’d lost before now. The love of the orchid that had strengthened my soul. The encouragement of the lilac to keep blooming no matter what. The forgiveness of the tulip for all my sins. The friendship of the daffodil that eased my deepest fears. The memories of all these flowers kept me from wilting, and finally, after what seemed like an eternity of darkness and suffocation, I crept outside.

I thought I’d never feel that kind of love again. Even if all it did was break me and trample me, I was still satisfied knowing that I was loved by something that would never die. Now I was too ugly and pathetic to even be recognizable as a daisy, let alone a flower.

I met a fifth flower.

I wanted to stay away, but she was so beautiful and enchanting. Her skin was dark with patches of light. Her petals were long and ruffly in beautiful, delicate hues. She was drawn to me, and I thought at first this was a danger.

When her roots touched mine, I knew it was too late. I fell into a daze of memories of wilted flowers and vicious weeds. I could not understand how I could be loved by something so beautiful and innocent.

“I love you.” Her cold hand was touching mine, her dark green eyes were looking away. She was afraid to look at me. Was I really that horrific?

“You can’t love me. I’m a pathetic, wilted daisy and I’ll only dry up your roots.”

“You are not a daisy.”

Her eyes were now looking into mine. Her hair fell around her face like a shower of crimson petals. She was so beautiful. “A carnation,” I softly said to myself. “You’re a carnation. I’m a daisy. I’ve known that for a while.”

“You are a carnation too. Being a daisy will remind you of weeds and darkness. Now, you can be a carnation. And you’re such a colorful one, too. We may not grow beside each other for all eternity, but I can promise that you are a beautiful thing in this world.”

The carnation was right. I wasn’t a daisy. Maybe, just maybe, I never was. Weeds are tricky. They’ll fool you and deceive you in so many ways. And even if I could abandon my fake daisy petals and grow into a lovely, colorful carnation, I didn’t know how I could ever move past my mistakes.

“You are not stupid. You are not pathetic. You are not weak.” She told this to me every day until my stem was as green as her love-filled eyes, until my petals were as strengthened as her beautiful voice, until we were both carnations growing beside each other.

I did not dry up her roots.

I did not wilt her flower.

I’m not a daisy. I’m not a weed.

I’m a strong, beautiful carnation.


End file.
